New DOT hour of service question?

[Pickles]

Do these rules apply to package car drivers? That 30 minute break before 8 hours may mess up some schedules if so. Also, is it 30 consecutive minutes or accumulated break minutes before hour 8?

Question 2, the 34 hour reset with two 1am-5am periods, does it have to be those full time slots? Example, I get off work (feeders) at 1:30am friday, can I not work again until 5am on Monday since I worked past 1am?

Just curious. Thanks.

Here is the new rules Summary of Hours-of-Service (HOS) Regulations - Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

 

[104Feeder]

It applies to all drivers of commercial motor vehicles so package drivers are included.

Yes the 30 minutes is consecutive. Our contractual meal periods already comply, just no more skipping any more than 30 min of personal (rest) time. You could still skip a meal if you took both 15 min breaks consecutively and did not drive or work during that time (you just know drivers will be jumping in a shifter to build their sets).

Yes it has to be the two periods of 1 to 5am to reset. You could still drive on Sunday in your example (provided you have hours), you just wont reset. Eventually you would need to reset (unless you were only working 8.5 hr days) but you can only use the reset once per week, 168 hrs measured form previous reset so if Dispatch is smart they will have you reset or they could end up owing you guarantee hours later.

 

[Dracula]

Yes, this is making me rub my palms together in delight, thinking about what this will do to the PC division. No more skipping meals, no more taking meals at the end of the day, unless they work less than 7.5 hours. They will need to start adding routes to comply with these new HOS rules.

 

[Catatonic]

Yes, this is making me rub my palms together in delight, thinking about what this will do to the PC division. No more skipping meals, no more taking meals at the end of the day, unless they work less than 7.5 hours. They will need to start adding routes to comply with these new HOS rules.

I thought these rules applied to drivers.
What does this have to do with "They"?

 

[Pickles]

Yes, this is making me rub my palms together in delight, thinking about what this will do to the PC division. No more skipping meals, no more taking meals at the end of the day, unless they work less than 7.5 hours. They will need to start adding routes to comply with these new HOS rules.

​This is what I was thinking too. Most of our PC drivers take meal and break at the end of the day. They are going to have to add drivers here just so pick-ups get made in time.

 

[Dracula]

Your old bunker buddies. When all drivers are forced to take their meal, they are going to need a half hour of help, or those who skip meals or hold off until the end of the day, anyway. These rules are not avoidable. Not without heavy fines. So your old friends in the neckties are going to be forced to add routes to help get all of those 1/2 hours of work that needs to be done.

This is long overdue.

 

[Pickles]

It applies to all drivers of commercial motor vehicles so package drivers are included.

Yes the 30 minutes is consecutive. Our contractual meal periods already comply, just no more skipping any more than 30 min of personal (rest) time. You could still skip a meal if you took both 15 min breaks consecutively and did not drive or work during that time (you just know drivers will be jumping in a shifter to build their sets).

Yes it has to be the two periods of 1 to 5am to reset. You could still drive on Sunday in your example (provided you have hours), you just wont reset. Eventually you would need to reset (unless you were only working 8.5 hr days) but you can only use the reset once per week, 168 hrs measured form previous reset so if Dispatch is smart they will have you reset or they could end up owing you guarantee hours later.

​I meant 1:30am on Saturday. I'm not very good at calling it by the real day until I wake up.

 

[Dracula]

And as 104feeder says, the meal period CANNOT be broken up in to segments. It has to be consecutive and taken before 8 hours is up. So no more, 5, 10 minutes here, and 10, 15 minutes there. 30 minutes non-stop.

 

[Pickles]

So BY hour 7.5 you have to start taking it?

 

[104Feeder]

​I meant 1:30am on Saturday. I'm not very good at calling it by the real day until I wake up.

I figured that. 1:30 a.m. finish Saturday morning means you would not have the 1-5 am period that day, so you would have to do it Sunday AM & Monday AM (reset 5 a.m. on Tuesday). Punch out at 1:01 a.m. Saturday morning and you've lost that reset period. As I said, you can still work but would not reset (your hours from Monday prior to Midnight would drop off and so on). I have a nice spreadsheet that figures out these hours for you easily on any smartphone that can run Excel.
This isn't going to create a huge headache once they get in the mode of scheduling you either Sun-Thur or Mon-Fri. Our work rules count Sunday work after 2100 as Monday work so we get some people scheduled on Sunday then called in Tue-Fri (2300 start Friday is the killer). This will have to go away or there are bound to be violations. Sure, you can reset later but then can't reset again until 7 days after or 168 hours, so that just compounds the problem. Drivers are going to have to keep this in mind when signing up for extra work also. I get the idea of what they are trying to do but it remains to be seen how this plays out. Personally, I don't have a problem going from nights, to days, and back on nights. I sleep like a baby pretty much anytime I need to, and I don't need more than 6 hours total, 4 consecutive. 8 consecutive hours just makes me lazy all day.

FUN FEEDER FACT: A study found that sleep deprived men overestimate the sexual desire of women. Now couple that with the fact that women gain, on average, 2 points on the 10 point scale when you're working (or women at your workplace) and it's a recipe for disaster. Awareness is the first step toward a cure.

 

[Jackburton]

FUN FEEDER FACT: A study found that sleep deprived men overestimate the sexual desire of women. Now couple that with the fact that women gain, on average, 2 points on the 10 point scale when you're working (or women at your workplace) and it's a recipe for disaster. Awareness is the first step toward a cure.

That would bring the ones up to a -3 around here.

 

[theunforgetablefire]

So BY hour 7.5 you have to start taking it?

the way it reads is 8 hours or less work with a 30 minute rest break. so at 7:59 you have better taken or be taking a 30 minute break.

 

[theunforgetablefire]

7 hours 59 minutes worked, not time

 

[HEFFERNAN]

The thing I never got was how the DOT hours of service grouped package drivers with feeders and over the road drivers.

The rules make sense when you consider long hours driving between points like tractor trailer driving.
But, when you consider the amount of boxes we have to deliver and pick up, the continuous getting on/off the vehicle, and basically the pure physicality of the job in the elements, you'd think that the DOT would group us separately in another tier.

Driving a trailer 60 hours and delivering in a package car 60 hours do not compare at all.
Both have different mental and physical obstacles that shouldn't be affiliated with each other.

I always think about this when I have to sign the DOT hours of service annual paperwork.

 

[upsset]

I agree with Heff, it should be a 50hr limit for package drivers.
​

 

[104Feeder]

The thing I never got was how the DOT hours of service grouped package drivers with feeders and over the road drivers.

The rules make sense when you consider long hours driving between points like tractor trailer driving.
But, when you consider the amount of boxes we have to deliver and pick up, the continuous getting on/off the vehicle, and basically the pure physicality of the job in the elements, you'd think that the DOT would group us separately in another tier.

Driving a trailer 60 hours and delivering in a package car 60 hours do not compare at all.
Both have different mental and physical obstacles that shouldn't be affiliated with each other.

I always think about this when I have to sign the DOT hours of service annual paperwork.

395.1 (e) (2) is your other tier, and they don't really emphasize that in your annual HOS certification. It pretty much throws out the 11 hour driving limit. If you were to fill out a logbook for package it should look like this:
8:00 on duty not driving
8:15 on duty, driving
12:15 on duty, not driving (Break, and yes this should be recorded as "off duty" but they don't get that right either)
12:30 off duty (meal)
1:00 on duty, not driving (Break again, and isn't it annoying that the logbooks don't do the 24 hour clock?)
1:15 on duty driving
9:45 on duty, not driving
10:00 off duty (14th hour)
You just had 12.5 hours of driving time, more if you worked up to 16 hours. Most SPARKS reports I've looked at showed more driving time between stops than time spent at stops in Residential areas, so the logic that you're spending more time not driving in Package is flawed especially with the increasing number of stops per car.

You're right about Package being fatiguing in a different sort of way. In Feeders you mostly have rather long stretches of driving periods of 1-5 hours at a time which can easily lead you to fall asleep at the wheel. Package has whatever the return to building stretch is for a particular route (which can also have the same catastrophic result IMO in a warm package car without a/c) but also many more minor operations in driving the vehicle that fatigue could be the cause of an accident. In the summer especially the drain of the long hot day compounding your normal workload many times made me feel so fatigued that I shouldn't have been driving.

Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any comments other than my own being submitted to the FMCSA during the comment period for the new rules on this issue so the matter remains unaddressed.

 

[anonymous6]

good news for a change.

 

[OptimusPrime]

11-Hour Driving Limit
May drive a maximum of 11 hours after 10 consecutive hours off duty.

Am I reading this right? No more 12+ hour shifts during peak? Awesome.

 

[outta hours]

11-Hour Driving Limit
May drive a maximum of 11 hours after 10 consecutive hours off duty.

Am I reading this right? No more 12+ hour shifts during peak? Awesome.

No. Drive time is not on duty time. Pkg. car drivers do not come close to actually driving 11 hours. Each stop you make is time you are not driving. The 11 hour rule applies to drive time only. The 14 hour rule does apply to pkg car drivers.

 

[bumped]

I can't wait for this mandatory meal for peak. Will management put 2 helpers on per car? Possibly one before lunch and another after.